Director's message:
Reflecting on a year of growth
As we welcome the New Year, and I approach my one year anniversary as director of alumni relations at the Johnson School, I cannot help but reflect on what a pleasure and privilege it has been to serve all of you. The growth of the alumni program this past year is due in no small part to the excellence of my colleagues in alumni relations and development (including, in particular, Jennifer Thurston, our assistant director of Alumni Relations), and our colleagues in the many other areas of the Johnson School that regularly interact with, and support, our efforts, including admissions, career management, corporation relations, executive education/EMBA, facilities, information technology, marketing and communications, the Office for Women and Minorities in Business, the Roy H. Park Fellows program, and student services. The support of Dean Swieringa, and the other members of the Management Committee (Associate Deans Cathy Dove, Dick Shafer, and Joe Thomas, and Executive Director of Development and Alumni Relations Rosalyn Hines) has likewise been invaluable, and underscores the school's dedication to its alumni and this program.

To be sure, one of the chief pleasures of this job has been getting to know many of you through personal meetings, attendance at alumni events, and your correspondence with this office. Several of you have stepped forward and assumed leadership roles in our regional club network, and for this, I am especially grateful. Our club volunteer corps is now, happily, too numerous to permit listing everyone here, but we owe special thanks to our club presidents, including: Ken Gurrola, MBA '95 (Johnson Club of New York), Xavier Viteri, MBA '89 (Johnson Club of Rochester), Jennifer Tegan, MBA '01, Greg Hubbell, MBA '02, and Tom, MBA '02 and Caitlin Schryver, MBA '01 (Johnson School Club of the Finger Lakes), Sarah Brubacher, MBA '99 (Johnson School Club of the Bay Area), Scott Taylor, MBA '90 (Johnson School Club of Southern California), Paul Snyder, MBA '99 (Johnson School Club of Atlanta), Stewart Merkin, MBA '70, and Doug Schwartz, MBA '03 (Johnson School Club of South Florida), Jeff Peterson, MBA '01 (Johnson School Club of Dallas), Kiran Kumar, MBA '02 (Johnson/Cornell Club of Alabama), Greg Crowley, MBA '00, and Jeff Kramer, MPA '75 (Johnson School Club of Chicago), Deanna Dukes, MBA '02 (Johnson School Club of Seattle), Roger O'Neil, MBA '61 (Johnson School European Alumni Board), Bunya Fujiwara, MBA '02, and Hirokazu Yamagauchi, MBA '94 (Johnson School Club of Japan), and Kyung-Bae Suh, MBA '87 (Johnson School Club of Seoul). Our club presidents would undoubtedly be the first to note that the efforts of many other alumni who serve as club officers and volunteers make their (and our) success possible, and all of these volunteers deserve our thanks, as well.

Among our goals for this coming year are the continued expansion of the regional club network both in the United States and abroad and the broadening of opportunities for all Johnson School alumni to remain connected with their alma mater. Some of you have already begun working with this office to revive or begin regional clubs in Washington, DC, Boston, Philadelphia, and Denver. Others may be mulling the possibility of starting a Johnson School Club in your corner of the world. If you are interested in participating in the regional club network, or otherwise volunteering your time and expertise for the Johnson School and our alumni program, I would love to hear from you. Please contact me at rmm22@cornell.edu or 800 847-2082, ext. 2.

I wish all of you a happy and healthy 2004, and I look forward to continuing the most enjoyable process of getting to know you and work with you.

Risa M. Mish '85, JD '88 Director, Alumni Relations

Sam Johnson and S.C. Johnson & Son have established a longstanding reputation for innovation in and commitment to sustainable business in terms of the "triple bottom line" (environmental, social and financial returns). For example, Forbes magazine named Johnson corporate America's leading environmentalist in 1993. As chairman and CEO, he directed S.C. Johnson & Son to set periodic goals for reducing pollution and waste in its products and processes in the 1990s and to eliminate chlorofluorocarbons from its aerosol products worldwide in 1975, three years before the U.S. mandate to do so. Such efforts earned the company the World Environment Center Gold Medal for International Corporate Environmental Achievement in 1994. In the arena of social investment, the company has invested more than $120 million and countless volunteer hours in programs to contribute to the communities in which it operates. In 1999, S.C. Johnson & Son received the Masterworks Corporate Award for innovative and enduring philanthropic achievement, and consistent, creative and effective community involvement.

"The gift will have great impact and significance," said Dean Swieringa. "When our graduates go on to positions of leadership and influence, they will carry with them a real awareness of how the challenge of global sustainability changes the competitive landscape for enterprises as well as the critical thinking skills and long-range view they'll need to make the best strategic decisions."

The gift is the latest among many given to Cornell by Johnson, chairman emeritus of S.C. Johnson and Son of Racine, Wis., and a Cornell alumnus. His $20 million gift to the Johnson School in 1984, made with his family and company, is the foundation of the school's current endowment. Johnson earned his A.B. degree at Cornell in 1950.

Johnson is a founding member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. He was appointed to the U.S. President's Council on Sustainable Development in 1993. He serves on the Nature Conservancy's board of governors. At Cornell, he is a presidential councillor, the highest honor granted by the university to its alumni, as well as a trustee emeritus. Read more about the Johnson School's commitment sustainable global enterprise in the current issue of Enterprise.

The authors discuss "actor-network theory," which postulates that good leaders must comprehend their place within their network and use strategies that forge new relationships and strengthen existing connections. The Park program, they explain, initially sprang from a confluence of mutual interests of actor networks inside and outside the Johnson School (e.g., an initial grant by Roy H. Park, Sam Johnson's grant to renovate Sage Hall, and the establishment of the Parker Center by Jeffrey Parker '86), and developed to reflect the interests of other actor networks, such as faculty and administrative staff.

The Park program and the overall Johnson School leadership experience, according to the authors, help students develop as leaders within actor networks. They write: "An actor-network leader is a person who has learned to see connections and relationships between people and things and develop the networks of knowledge, information, space, and social capital necessary for managing and increasing organizational or system performance." At the Johnson School, "the leadership model, the action-learning framework, the curriculum design, and school activities work together in an integrated effort to teach students how to create and sustain system networks for accomplishing organizational goals."

Under the Park program, which was launched in 1997, up to 25 MBA students per academic year receive full tuition plus stipend. Park Fellows must be academically outstanding and have demonstrated exemplary leadership ability and commitment to their community. The program is funded by the Triad Foundation Inc., of which Roy H. Park Jr., MBA '63, is president and chairman.

	Capt. Steve Miska, MBA '99, is a U.S. Army Operations Officer for a 750 soldier Infantry Battalion, the Vanguards, that is deploying to Iraq next month. Captain Miska reports that his unit will focus its operations on "continuing to fight the Iraqi insurgency, while simultaneously trying to nurture self governance among very diverse groups of people, including the Sunni, Shia, and Kurds." His daily scope of duties will entail issuing orders to the command and staff of the unit's task force and developing plans for building public infrastructure and engaging local leaders in the rebuilding process. Captain Miska notes, "Morale is always high knowing that the majority of our country supports the military, regardless of whether they subscribe to current administration policy." He also salutes the families of the military (including his own wife, Amy, and children Robby and Heather), explaining, "Our spouses step up and perform the roles of moms and dads, continue to volunteer in the community, and help other spouses and families cope with the rigors of deployment. All of that support allows us to focus, free of distractions, wondering if our families are all right." Alumni who wish to offer support to Capt. Miska can e-mail him at steven.miska@hq.1id.army.mil.
	Nell Cady-Kruse, MBA '85, is a managing director of Credit Suisse First Boston, based in London. She is the European Head of Credit Risk Management for Financial Institutions and Emerging Markets (Europe, Middle East & Africa). She has over 18 years of investment banking experience in both the United States. and Europe in leveraged lending, high yield bond underwriting, corporate valuation, risk analysis, risk management and decision-making. Prior to joining CSFB, she was CFO of StreetZebra, Inc., a Hicks Muse-financed media and Internet company. Prior to joining StreetZebra in 2000, she spent 15 years with Bankers Trust Company, BT Alex. Brown, and Deutsche Bank. She originally joined Bankers Trust in 1985 in the Leveraged Buyout Group in New York. She worked for the firm in various positions in leveraged acquisitions and execution in London, New York and Los Angeles. By 1994, as managing director and underwriter, she was in charge of all credit and underwriting decisions for deals originating on the West Coast; including lending (predominantly highly leveraged loans), high yield bonds and bridge loans, derivative products (including hedge fund activities), troubled and workout situations. She also managed the West Coast loan portfolio. Cady-Kruse was a member of the board of directors of Bankers Trust Company of California, from 1994 to 1999. She is a CFA charterholder and is a member of the Association of Investment Management & Research (AIMR) and the UK Society of Investment Professionals (UKSIP). She is a guest lecturer at Cornell University and UCLA and a Fulfillment Fund Mentor, and in 2001 won the Mercedes Mentor Award. She serves on the board of directors of Young Enterprise London, a non-profit organization whose mission is to inspire and equip young people to learn and succeed through enterprise. Cady-Kruse received her BS with honors in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University.
	Mike Masnick, MBA '98, is the president and Grier Graham, MBA '98, is the VP of sales and marketing of TechDirt, Inc., a Silicon Valley company that Masnick founded as a student at Cornell. The publication began as an electronically distributed newsletter focused on technology and business and is now an Internet site visited daily by those interested in areas such as spam, intellectual property, and Internet business models. Masnick employs and manages a team of analysts who use proprietary tools to scour the Internet for corporate intelligence that is sold to high-tech firms. The site has received awards from, and been cited in, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CBS Marketwatch, and Popular Science.
	In January 2003, Alden Kaplan, MPA '75, became deputy budget director for New York State. Kaplan is responsible for overseeing 70 percent of the state's budget, including the areas of higher education (which encompasses the state and city university systems and all NY state tuition assistance programs), health and mental hygiene (including Medicaid, the Department of Health, Mental Health, Alcohol and Substance Abuse, Department of Insurance, and Office of Aging), and Welfare (including child welfare and family services, the Office of Disability Assistance, and the Department of Labor). Kaplan began his career in state government while still a student at the Johnson School, when he served as an intern for the Senate Finance Committee. Before becoming deputy budget director, he served as deputy commissioner for the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. He credits professors Bierman, Thomas, and Dyckman, for providing him with a solid foundation in statistical analysis and how to read a balance sheet, and says that his education at the Johnson School taught him the importance of analyzing an issue from multiple points of view, rather than "accepting as gospel" the views being advanced by any particular individual or group.

Professor Robert Frank appears in a New York Times article that asked a handful of writers, scholars, and other opinionated people to identify the most overrated and underrated ideas of 2003. Frank, an economics professor and author of the forthcoming book "What Price the Moral High Ground," commented on the repeal of the Estate Tax and how having money does not guarantee happiness. Interestingly, the article with Professor Frank's comments resulted in a similar article being published in the Dong-A Ilbo Daily, Korea's daily paper that has a reading base of 2.2 million people.

Professor Frank was also quoted in Australia's The Sydney Morning Herald in an article that investigates the rationalization of extreme spending. Professor Frank's view of pursuing luxury goods by each individual's frame of reference and by what others have or what you think that have, provided some support for the author's argument.

Associate Professor Warren Bailey appeared on CNNfn's Street Sweep where he discussed the volatility of emerging capital markets in 2004 and what investors should be looking for as they consider moving their money to these markets.

Maureen O'Hara, professor of finance, was quoted in a Dow Jones Newswire article investigating the prospect of dual listings with Nasdaq and NYSE. O'Hara confirmed the fairly well-established precedent of having multiple listings in exchanges.

For more Johnson School media hits, see Johnson School in the News.

January 22
San Francisco, CA
CEN Silicon Valley presents "Financial Services: Changing the Competitive Landscape via Innovation and Deployment of New Information Technologies" by William Boerum, MBA '68, senior account executive, SAS, Lee Kranefuss, BS ENGR '84, CEO, Intermediary and Exchange Traded Funds Business, Barclays Global Investors, and Colin Walsh, BS ALS '90, executive vice president, Wells Fargo Consumer Credit Group. Location: The Fairmont Hotel San Francisco, 6:00 - 8:30 p.m., cost: $30. For more information or to RSVP, please visit www.cen.cornell.edu.

January 28
Atlanta, GA
Johnson Club of Atlanta presents "Finding Creative Financial Solutions to Hotel Development Challenges in the 21st Century" by Jim Stormont, MBA '85. Location: Crowne Plaza - Buckhead (3377 Peachtree Road NE). Cost: $30 per person. For more information, contact Dan Berler. To register and pay securely online, please visit www.johnson.cornell.edu/alumni/events.

Johnson School specific events appear in red.